GUWAHATI: There is something definitely wrong with transparency in National Health Mission Assam. The officials in the department don’t seem to follow basic procedures while issuing important tenders. One such example of high-handedness was seen in an advertisement in one of the leading dailies.
Published on 19th September 2018, the tender notice states the issue date of the bid document as 18th September 2018, which clearly points at some sort of internal arrangement within the department – if the last date of getting the bid document was yesterday there is no point telling it today. How are parties interested in the tender going to bid for it as they have no way of knowing about the tender?
It just means that the NHM Assam office has turned into a tender-fixing centre. The much-talked transparency that the Sarbananda Sonowal-led government pledges lies in a shambles with such examples coming up in important departments.
According to the parties, the above tender was initially floated online on 14th September, 2018 with the last date of submission being 18th September, 2018. But suddenly on 18th September, the parties found that the tender has been cancelled without any valid reason. This same tender with a few details changed has now again been published on 19th September.
Also, a very important point is that if a government tender value is above rupees fifty lakh, it qualifies for e-tender. But in this case, the NHM Assam has gone ahead with the offline, manual tender mode. It just proves that the NHM Assam has already decided on whom to give the job and all this posting of advertisement is just an eyewash to mislead the general public.